(c) Photo Polish Commissioner for HR; picture from left: Ilze Brands-Kehris, Alexander Shlyk und Armin Rabitsch
The Polish Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsperson) organised for the second time the Congress for Human Rights on 14/15 December 2018 in Warsaw.
Election-Watch.EU (wahlbeobachtung.org) was invited to the Panel on International Electoral Standards to debate on the importance and possibilities of international and citizen election observation. The event was held in English with Polish synchronous translation. Armin Rabitsch specifically emphasized the importance of trust and responsibility in the conduct of elections, recommended the Austrian example to reduce the voting age to 16 and referred to the double standards of acceptance and accreditation of citizen observers inside and outside the EU. Electoral reform advocacy has to come from outside and from within to strengthen democracies and electoral processes against existing and new challenges. Greater effort in advocacy of legal reforms across European/OSCE countries/participating States to fully acknowledge international as well as citizen election observation, and fully adhere to Article 8 of the OSCE Copenhagen Document is required. While the recent Declaration of Principles (DoP) meeting in London reiterated the work of citizen election observation, and the importance of setting clear standards and adherence to the DoP’s Code of Conduct, OSCE participating States are reluctant to change their legislation and accreditation practice for election observers.2nd Human Rights Congress Warsaw
Workshop: International standards of election monitoring; 15. Dec. 2018, 9.30-11.00
Presentation: Armin Rabitsch, Election-Watch.EU
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On 26 November Election-Watch.EU took part in the conference “EUrope at School”. The event was organized by the network Europe in School, which has been founded by the Representation of the European Commission, the Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Research and the Liaison Office of the European Parliament in Austria.
At the conference Election-Watch.EU presented its new project Civic Education for Young Voters – Pupils and Apprentices meet Candidates to the European Parliament [...]
(c) picture WDD
The Warsaw Dialogue on Democracy (WDD) is an annual international conference, organized by the Polish MFA, dedicated to many facets of current democratization processes. This year’s Warsaw Dialogue on Democracy on 22/23 in November 2018 was held under the title Democracy 2.0 and the main scope of the discussion was on the ways modern technologies and social media influence democracies all around the world.
The discussion panel “free elections [...]
On 8 November 2018, election-watch.eu (wahlbeobachtung.org) signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the partnership between the European Parliament and election-watch.eu (wahlbeobachtung.org) in the context of the 2019 European election voter information campaign.
The European Parliament and election-watch.eu (wahlbeobachtung.org) have the common goal of providing impetus in the run-up to the election and motivating as many EU citizens as possible to get involved and act as multipliers in the context [...]
The team of Wahlbeobachtung.org, together with students of 4th year school classes of the BHAK Eisenstadt, had developed a workshop on elections, democracy and democratic processes entitled “Electoral Systems and the Understanding of Democracy” in January 2018.
This five-hour, practice-oriented and interactive workshop [...]
Ahead of the European elections in May 2019, election-watch.eu (wahlbeobachtung.org) highlights the electoral reform process at European level and underlines the benefits of international and citizen election observation. Election-watch.eu (wahlbeobachtung.org) explained the details in a guest commentary in the Wiener Zeitung on 2 November 2018: (Wahlreformen gefordert – Wiener Zeitung Gastkommentar pdf download)
The European Parliament elections are one of the biggest democratic events in [...]
Picture: Michael Lidauer explaining international principles in Election Dispute Resolution (EDR)
Election.Watch.EU (wahlbeobachtung.org) was invited to train staff members and researchers at the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia in the framework of ProCuria, Judicial Training Program for Legal Officers, at the The Hague University of Applied Sciences over a period of two days. The team of Election-Watch.EU (wahlbeobachtung.org) provided a tailor-made workshop, covering an introduction [...]
Following an invitation by the President of the National Council Parliament hosted an electoral reform event on 13 September 2018. All five constitutional spokespersons of political parties in parliament participated.
The representative of OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) presented recommendations of its election assessment mission to the general elections 2017. Wahlbeobachtung.org (Election-Watch.EU) presented key recommendations [...]
